


Glitter in my eye

by Multifandom_damnation



Category: The New Mutants (2020)
Genre: Caretaking, Developing Friendships, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, On the Run, Self-Worth Issues, Team Bonding, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, Teamwork, Tranquilizers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_damnation/pseuds/Multifandom_damnation
Summary: Sometimes, things need to go terribly wrong before they can go incredibly right
Relationships: Roberto da Costa & Sam Guthrie & Danielle Moonstar & Rahne Sinclair & Illyana Rasputin
Kudos: 22





	Glitter in my eye

**Author's Note:**

> Have I watched New Mutants yet? No! None of my cinemas are open! But when has not seen the content ver stopped me from writing a fic about it? And people have posted some things on YouTube, and while the quality is pretty shitty, it's fueled me just enough that I had the energy to write this fic. I'm so damn excited to see it!! I've been waiting three years for this, and I don't care what the critics and the haters say, it looks so damn good!! I honestly cannot wait, I've been watching clips on the New Mutants Instagram page almost religiously. Gosh, I love X-Men, and these characters all just look so darn good!!
> 
> I haven't seen it yet, but my first fic is about Sam because from what I've seen, he ticks all my boxes. Like, he seems to be everything I enjoy in a character, you know??? I don't know how to explain it without watching it, because it mostly stemmed from a line Rahne said in one of the previews, about him trying to hurt himself?? I don't know. He's really cool, and I like him. My predictions before I go and see this movie is that my favourites, in order, are going to be Sam, Illiana, Rahne, Roberto, Dani. I mean, I love them all, but just from what I've seen from the trailers, I normally gravitate to people more like Sam and Illiana, and Rahne is just really cool. 
> 
> I feel like I should also apologise to the people who have seen the movie already if these characters are OOC or incorrect compared to how they were portrayed? I tried to do my best with the clips the official Instagram provided us and what people have posted on YouTube, so I'm sorry if I didn't do it justice!!
> 
> Also, credit where credit is due, I got the idea for the tranquiliser darts off of @WhiteravenGreywolf and their very lovely story "We Are Not Alone", which I have thoroughly enjoyed and kept up to date with every chapter. When the scene with the tranq darts happened, I spend all night wondering "but what would have happened if someone had been hit by them?" and fell asleep to that thought, and this is what spawned from that idea. 
> 
> So! I hope you all enjoy this little fic I had a lot of fun writing, and that I didn't butcher it too badly. This is not my greatest fic, but I liked the way it turned out, particularly towards the end. I tagged it wrong, but it was a bitch to tag all of those characters like that in the relationships bar, and I didn't have the strength to change it. So every character is in this and they all have lines and actions and stuff, but it's mostly about Sam and Roberto. Anyway, please enjoy!

It was their third day in the new town they had momentarily called their home when Essex came looking for them in the form of armoured cars and men dressed in darkly coloured body armour branded with the Essex insignia carrying large guns loaded with unknown ammunition that they couldn't guarantee wasn't intended to kill.

Honestly, it was less of a hunt and more of a chase. There was no running through streets and dodging bullets behind the bulks of cars and retaliating from behind the corners of walls like you see in the movies. It was mostly all about staying low and hiding away in their hotel rooms all day, moving at night to a different motel to rent new rooms each evening, hoping that the Essex soldiers weren't smart enough to follow their tracks.

Now, after an unfortunate spotting of Dani and Rahne at the small local grocery store earlier that afternoon, they had been forced to run through the streets and hide from bullets behind cars just like the movies promised. There was a spray of hard pellets against the metal bodywork of the vehicle, and they flinched collectively as whatever ammunition they were firing missed them by nothing but a few inches of steel.

Roberto rose from his crouch and thrust his hand out over the bonnet of the car towards the approaching Essex men and the armoured car, and his forearm erupted in crackling flame as he sent a burst of searing sunlight towards them. His attack was met by screaming as he ducked back behind the car, the skin of his arm slowly reverting back from burnt, crackling volcanic rock to the smooth skin they were used to. "Go, go," he said, grabbing Illiana as he moved out into the open towards the next car, and she yanked herself away from him, but moved on regardless.

Another volley of gunfire erupted behind them, and Sam, being at the end of their little crab-walking posey, was too slow to shift behind the car with the others, and was nearly knocked off his feet by the feeling of innumerable tiny objects being embedded in his skin, and he involuntarily let out a pained and startled yelp as he joined the others, collapsing against the car. He was keenly aware of the other's eyes on him, but he was just trying to get his bearings, trying not to focus on the things in his shoulder and the pain pulsing through him. They almost seemed to twitch on their own accord, the part not rooted deep within his flesh almost quivering in the wind. 

Panicked, Dani reached out and yanked them all out of his shoulder, bundling their long ends in her fist and removing them all in one, swift pull, and they looked at them in her open palm for a moment before the panic began to set in. "Oh no," Dani said, looking between Sam panting heavily beside her and the long dart-like needles in her hand still spotted with traces of Sam's blood. "Sam-"

"Go," he insisted. "Just... just go."

"Just go?" Roberto repeated, looking horrified. "Are you out of your Kentucky fried _mind_?"

"Who knows what they had in those needles?" Rahne agreed. "If we leave you, they could _catch_ you and take you _back_."

Sam peered out through the window of the car at the slowly approaching Essex men. "But if you leave me," he said. "You guys have a much better chance of getting the hell out of here."

More darts hit the exterior of the car and was met by a chorus of startled shouting beside him, but as the sound faded, Sam was suddenly very aware of the dryness of his tongue, the way all sounds seemed to be muffled like he'd been deafened by the blast of an explosion, the slow way that a thick fog began to creep into his mind and his fingers and toes began to tingle like they did when he propelled himself through the air and the velocity made his blood flow weird. He thought that he could hear the others speaking to him, but they sounded very far away, or like they were yelling from underwater, and when he tried to focus on them and blink the metaphorical dust from his eyes, they shifted and undulated strangely and looked like they were standing in a snowstorm.

He watched dimly as the earth rose to meet him, and then he was grabbed by strong hands holding him upright and realized that it was _him_ who was falling face-first towards the asphalt and not the ground moving. He gasped as he felt sharp pains in his arm, and blinked up to see Rahne wrapping her arms through his, her eyes a darkened multi-colour, her teeth sharpened, her ears furred, and her claws digging into his arm in her panic. "Sam? Sam, are you alright?"

Just past her, Illiana and Roberto were bickering, but he couldn't hear a word they were saying, but he could feel the vibrations of their voices in his chest. "We need to go," he said, but even his own voice sounded wrong to his ears. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at him, and before he knew it, despite how weak his legs felt when he put any sort of weight on them, he forced himself to move and scurry behind the next car further up, braving a trek out into the open, before collapsing again behind a car. A moment later, the others joined him, looking a lot better than he felt. 

Another volley hit against the car as Roberto moved around Dani and Rahne to speak directly into Sam's ear. "We haven't got much to go, but we've still got to make a run for it when we leave the town. Do you think you can make it?"

His word held no meaning to Sam, who could hardly understand what he was saying, and he pulled away from Roberto's firm hold and piercing gaze. Reluctantly, Roberto let him go and returned to bickering with Illiana. Rahne wrapped her arm around his again, both to keep him upright and to help pull him along. He flinched as something landed beside him, but he didn't think to move away until Rahne pulled him aside when smoke started spewing from the object on the ground. "Now's our time to go," Rahne said. "Before they come for us in the smoke."

She pulled Sam out of the slumped position he had found himself in dragged him towards the next vehicle, a long delivery truck parked horizontally across the road as the driver delivered parcels, and he stumbled along beside them before he collapsed in a gasping, pained heap behind the truck, falling to his hands and knees as the world swam and his eyelids started to grow heavy. There was a hand on his back, moving in soothing motions up and down his spine, and he assumed it must have been Dani standing guard beside him, considering the hand had no claws, and Roberto and Illiana were still bickering.

"It's gonna be alright," she was saying, mostly for her own benefit. "We're going to be fine."

He didn't bother answering her, and just occupied himself with trying to stand on his own two feet, but it was increasingly difficult with his legs somehow feeling like jelly and like lead at the same time and his vision swimming so badly that he thought he was going to be sick, and a fuzzy kind of sleepiness coming over him as it did back at the hospital, when Reyes would inject them with her unknown drug to keep them calm and docile. He could see the edge of the town not too far away, a long stretch of highway surrounded by high grasses and tall trees and open space. He knew that if they could just make that distance, then they would be free and could outrun the Essex men, but he doubted that he could make it that far. His vision was already starting to become spotted with darkness, and he was trying to take deeper breaths to keep himself upright.

Dani's comforting hand left his back and was replaced with a hand on the scruff of his neck, squeezing him tightly and trying to bring him back to the present. "You go on," Illiana spoke into his ear, her words harsh yet mellowed by concern. "You blast off and get as far away as you can, and then we'll catch up and meet you. Got it?"

The plan made more sense than he had expected it to, and he found himself nodding before he had even comprehended it. She stepped away from him as his arms ignited, fluctuating with such velocity as the building energy roared into life that the ground below him began to vibrate before he shot forward at an unbelievable speed, away from his friends and the Essex men shooting at them and the street filled with cars, and collided against the ground somewhere, his body careening like a discarded children's toy, tearing up soil and grass in his uncontrolled landing, before he finally came to a stop, landing face-down in the mud. He ached in a familiar way, but darkness finally began to overtake his vision, his breathing growing laboured and his limbs growing heavy before the toxins in his system finally overpowered him and he was swallowed by the darkness.

Once or twice, he felt hands on him, wind against his face, the obnoxious sound of bickering piercing his ears, hands both harsh and gentle all over him, but he couldn't take much notice of it because he was already fast asleep again. 

When he awoke for the first time since he fell unconscious, his breath came back to him in a hiccuping rush, his eyes flying open and his hands scrambling for something to grab onto, and only finding dirt and straw under his fingertips. After a moment of panicked breathing, he calmed himself down and allowed himself to finally take a look around the room.

He was slowly aware of the roughness under his face, and he pulled away to stare into a thick pile of scratchy hay. There was a jacket thrown over him, and he lifted his cap off of his face to see the darkness of the room, and he blinked a few times to acquaint himself with the dim space lit by the moon through the loose slats in the roof. He was in a barn of some sort, with the double doors barricaded from the inside and the ground was strewn with mud and straw. He was resting his back against the wall of the barn. On the direct opposite side of the barn from him, Dani and Rahne slept upon a thick mound of hay and straw, not quite touching but close enough to reach each other at a moments notice. Illiana slept in a corner, her back pressed up against the wall and Lockheed cradled lovingly in her arms, her hair mused across her face. Roberto sat upon a stacked pile of hay bales, his hands folded between his open legs, watching Sam with tired, concerned eyes. "Hey," he said, voice low but pitched to carry.

Sam licked at his lips and swallowed a few times before he spoke, and even then, his mouth still felt like it was stuffed with cotton. "Hi," he managed, sounding gravelly and raw and a little sickly. "Are we...?"

"We're safe, for now," Roberto assured. "We're in some sort of abandoned barn about a mile away from that town. They didn't come after us, so we've been hunkered up here, waiting for you to wake up. I'm taking the first watch."

"Uh," Sam shifted, pulling the coat off of him. He glanced down at it, but couldn't figure out who it belonged to in the dark. "Sorry about that."

Roberto scoffed, the harsh sudden sound too loud for the still and silent night. "Don't be. There's nothing you could have done. They were shooting at us- you were just the unlucky bastard that got hit."

"I guess," Sam said. He squinted down at the jacket in his hands. "Is this Dani's shirt?"

"Yeah," Roberto said. "She took it off when we set you down. She said something about not wanting you to get cold."

Blinking, Sam peered down at the plaid shirt that now rested over his legs. "Oh," he said, glancing across the barn to Dani, who now had her fingers intertwined in Rahne's, who had snuggled closer. "She shouldn't have. There were others who probably need it more, like you or Illiana. You two are barely wearing anything."

His statement was met by laughter, and though it wasn't cruel or unkind, it still made Sam feel like it was a silly thing to say. "Thanks for your concern, but I think I'm alright," Roberto lifted his arm from where it rested between his legs and the skin crackled and blistered like rock, flames shining through the cracks and heat radiated off of him. "And Illy wouldn't have taken it even if she had wanted it. So really, if she were feeling generous, you were the only likely candidate."

Not knowing what to say to that, Sam curled up against the wall, bringing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms securely around them. The cast was still so obnoxious to coexist with, uncomfortable and restricting, but he made do. "I heard you and Illiana bickering while we were running," Sam said. "What was that about?"

Leaning back against the bales of hay, Roberto kicked his legs dully against the straw and scoffed, tilting his head up to look at the ceiling. "Oh, nothing. She wanted to leave you behind, but to be totally honest, I think she wanted to leave _all_ of us behind. I had to hold onto her to make sure she didn't just open a portal and leave us there to die and let me tell you, she wasn't very happy about _that_."

The imagery of that scenario was just so fitting and funny that Sam couldn't help but laugh as he imagined it playing out. Roberto holding onto Illiana while Rahne and Dani tried to scurry along, Illiana trying to yank her arm out of Roberto's grasp before reluctantly giving in to his demands, trying subtly to shake him off while running through the streets and away from the bullets aimed for her head. "Thanks for that, by the way."

"For what?" Roberto frowned.

Sam cleared his throat. He was sure that Roberto was just being obtuse, but his face in the darkness gave nothing away. It was always harder to admit these kinds of things out loud. "For not leaving me behind. And making sure they didn't kill me or take me back."

"Nah, no worries," Roberto laughed, throwing his head back in the way those rich people did when they knew they were right. In the darkness, his skin almost glowed. "We're a team now, so we couldn't just leave you there to die. Although, carrying you all the way here was another issue entirely. Illy and I could hardly do it, and she almost managed to convince me to dump your ass where we were and come back for you if you were still alive some other time. But thankfully, Dani and Rahne have more of a conscious than us, and wouldn't let us."

"Well, I suppose it's _them_ that I should be thanking, then," Sam teased, and for a moment, it was peaceful and quaint and collaborative, and the fear that had taken hold of their hearts for so long had lessened, and the hectic panic they had been in since they escaped the cage had quieted down somewhat. But still, despite them feeling relatively safe and most of them asleep peacefully and Sam enjoying this rare moment of tranquillity and friendship, he knew from experience that it wouldn't last for very long, and he had a painful question brewing on the tip of his tongue that he just couldn't shake. "Why did you do it?"

Roberto sat up now, twisting to look at him fully, and the moon above cast dark shadows across his face. "Do what, Sam?"

"Why did you," Sam waved his hands about, trying to pluck the correct words out of the air. "You know. Take me with you instead of leaving me behind? You guys could have gotten away without having to worry if you had just left me there as a distraction or bait or something. But you risked your own lives to save mine. You didn't have to. We hardly even know each other, but you saved me. Why did you do it? Why did you bother?"

A sad, raw, pained look spread across Roberto's face before it was wiped clean to show his usual, cocky expression. "Because we're a bunch of fuck-ups. And us fuck-ups stick together. That place took everything away from us. If we don't have each other, then what do we have?"

He was spared from answering by a frustrated huff from the other end of the barn, and both men glanced over to see Illiana slowly sitting up on her pile of hay, groggy and disoriented, and rubbing sleepily at her eyes. "Oi," even after just waking up, her voice was still as gruff and harsh as ever. "Morons. Some of us are trying to get some sleep."

"Sorry, Sleeping Beauty," Roberto joked and received an answering frown in response. "We're just chatting. Go back to sleep."

"I _was_ asleep _. You_ go to sleep."

"I'm taking the first watch, remember? You gave us the orders and everything."

Again, Illiana frowned at him, a deep frown that morphed her face and made her eyebrows pinch together and his eyes narrow. Lockheed was still clutched protectively to her chest. "My mama used to say that if you frown all the time your face will get stuck like that," Sam said, adjusting his cap.

Illiana turned to him, and the stare she fixed him with made him feel a little colder. She jerked her chin at him. "And you? You're OK?"

"Yeah," Sam said, squirming under the unexpected scrutiny. "Just knocked me on my ass a little, is all. It kind of felt like the stuff that Doctor Reyes used back at the hospital, so there's no question now where she was getting all her toys from."

"I don't know what that says about _us_ that we can tell different kinds of drugs that are being put into us from past experience," Roberto muttered to nobody in particular, running a heavy hand down his tired face.

Sam bundled up the plaid shirt that had been laid over him like a blanket while he slept, and tossed it at Illiana. She let go of Lockheed with one hand to catch it in mid-air. "Here," he called as she looked down at it. "You could probably use it more than me."

She looked down at the dirty shirt in her hands before she gently placed Lockheed on the pile of hay and crawled over to where Rahne and Dani were sleeping together in a tangled heap and spread it over them as best she could. Rahne stirred slightly but just crowded closer to Dani. "You should go back to sleep," Illiana said to Sam, already lying back down on her hay pile, returning Lockheed to his place against his her chest.

"I feel like I haven't been pulling my weight. I've been asleep the whole time," Sam objected. "I can finish Roberto's watch, and then wake up the next person."

Illiana shook her head. "You are no use to us sleep-deprived and sloppy. Get all the sleep you can. Tomorrow, you can take the first shift. But tonight, you sleep off whatever drug they put into you today, and then we'll figure out where to go from there."

"Oh," Sam said, feeling utterly useless and like a waste of space. "Alright then."

"Congratulations," Roberto joked as Illiana turned over, conscious that she was still awake and listening. "She was being nice. You've got to teach me how to do that. She's never sounded so worried."

"If that's Illiana sounding worried, then I'd hate to see what she sounds like when she gets anxious," Sam joked and was keenly aware of grumbling from the other side of the room that he couldn't help but smile at. But the smile fell pretty fast when he returned his attention to Roberto. "Hey, man, I'm _really_ sorry about today."

"Don't be, man. You were shot with tranquillizers. It honestly could have happened to anyone," Roberto shrugged, and at his words, Sam felt a rush of something hot that he couldn't understand. Maybe it was pride. Or maybe he was just blushing. "It just happened to the best of us, is all. But don't worry, I'm sure we'll all get our turn to be the damsel in distress before this adventure of ours is over. You were just lucky enough to go first, you show off."

It was obvious that Roberto was trying to make him feel better, but it wasn't really helping. "Right," Sam sighed, taking his cap off to run a hand through his hair before putting it back where it belonged. "I wouldn't exactly call this an adventure though. But I get what you mean," he paused, eyeing Roberto with scrutiny. "Are you sure that you don't want me to finish your watch?"

"Nah man, and even if I did, Illy would probably cut me in half with that crazy magical sword of hers," Roberto laughed, shaking his head in a way that made his whole body move. "Get some rest, Sam. I think you're going to need it. I'll keep an eye out, keep us safe tonight."

Sam was surprised to find himself following his friend's advice, the effects of the drugs that he been fired into him not completely wearing off yet, and was even more surprised to realize that for the first time in as long as he could remember, he really truly felt safe. 

**Author's Note:**

> When the movie was first announced to be coming out at the beginning of this year, I brought a New Mutant's comic so I could become acquainted with the characters and get to know them before watching, only to find out that the comic I brought only had, like, two of the members from the movie and a whole heap of new characters, so that was a bust haha. Good comic though!


End file.
